The police commissioner has won an appeal to have two gold bars seized by the Crown, after they were found in the possession of a burglar.
File image. Photo: By Andrzej Barabasz (Chepry) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons
Raymond Law admitted to committing burglaries at five laundromats in Auckland, and stealing $11,000, but not the gold bars.
Law was caught during the third of five burglaries.
"When the police arrived, they found Mr Law wearing black rubber gloves and in possession of burglary tools, including screwdrivers, a hammer, a crowbar and a chisel," Court of Appeal documents state.
"Inside a bag that was in Mr Law's possession, the police found the two gold bars and a jewellery box containing earrings and a pendant."
Law told the police the gold bars came from his grandmother in Canada and he took them with him, in a bag with his burglary tools, after having an argument with his partner.
He was unable to provide any documentary evidence of how he came into possession of the gold bars.
In the High Court, it was decided that the gold bars were not acquired from criminal activity, therefore they could not be seized by police.
However, the Court of Appeal did not believe those arguments.
"We accept the commissioner's arguments that the judge erred by not taking into account all relevant strands of evidence when assessing the strength of the commissioner's case," the court said.
"While the individual strands of evidence by themselves may not have been sufficient to have granted the application, when all the strands of evidence are considered together, we are satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the gold bars were stolen property."
The gold bars can now be seized and be held by the Crown.
